The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Strategic Outlook for Saudi Arabia and Iran - Shmuel Bar

by Shmuel Bar

A look at some of the primary dynamics moving these two countries

In Saudi Arabia,
Mohammad bin Salman's "Vision 2030" is totally identified with his
leadership. If it succeeds, he will harvest the praise; on the other
hand, many in the Saudi elite will latch on to any sign of failure of
his policies in order to block his ambitions.

Mohammad bin Salman's social-political agenda to broaden the
power base of the regime to include the young and educated -- and to a
great extent relatively secular or moderate -- will certainly be seen by
the Wahhabi clerics and the tribal social conservatives as geared
towards reducing their control over the populace and hence their weight
in the elite.

Another serious risk is that the economic plan entails reducing
the Saudi welfare state. The economic and social fallout of weaning the
Saudis away from entitlements will be exploited by domestic opposition
elements and by Iran.

In Iran, the electoral process within the Assembly showed
what was not evident during the parliamentary elections held in
February, namely that even a formal preeminence of moderates does not
and cannot influence the decision making of the Iranian regime and that
Khamenei succeeds to pull the strings despite seemingly democratic
procedures.

After having won the chairmanship of the Assembly, Jannati
delivered a speech demanding total loyalty to Khamenei, which can be
considered as targeting the moderates.

Following the announcement of Saudi Arabia's "Vision 2030" Economic
Plan by Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman on April 25, King Salman
announced a reshuffling of the government. The reshuffling was clearly
orchestrated by the Deputy Crown Prince and reflects his agenda. This
shuffle probably is not the last word even in the near term; the changes
in the government strengthen the political position of Mohammad bin
Salman, because the new ministers owe him their posts, and through them
he will strengthen his hold on the levers of government, especially in
the economic sphere. His next step may be to move to neutralize Prince
Mitab bin Abdullah, the minister in charge of the Saudi Arabian National
Guard (SANG) and a close ally of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Nayef. He
could do this by absorbing SANG into the Ministry of Defense.

Such a step would probably not sit well with many of the members of
the royal family; however, if Mohammad bin Salman takes such a step, it
will only be with the consent of his father, King Salman, and none would
actively oppose him. Such a step would have significant ripple effects;
international influence in Saudi Arabia has focused for decades on
acquiring sectorial influence in the various centers of power of the
Kingdom – the different factions of the royal family, the business
sector, the army, the SANG etc. The continuing concentration of power in
the hands of Mohammad bin Salman will reduce the political relevance of
many of these assets of international players and they will be obliged
to restructure their connections and sources of information on the
politics and economic decision making of the Kingdom.

Farther down the road -- in our assessment not in the short term --
King Salman may appoint his son to the position of Prime Minister – a
title that he presently holds himself. Such a promotion would pave the
way for Mohammad bin Salman to depose the Crown Prince, Mohammad bin
Nayef, to be appointed as the next Crown Prince and to succeed his
father. A possibility exists -- though in our assessment it is not
likely in the near future -- that the King will even abdicate and pass
the reins of the Kingdom to his son after he has been duly appointed as
Crown Prince. These scenarios will be a disappointment to policy-shapers
in Washington who prefer -- or at least feel more comfortable with
Mohammad bin Nayef. This too will call for a significant shift in the
international disposition towards the Saudi regime; development of
channels of influence with Mohammad bin Salman and his confidantes,
adapting to a new and unfamiliar paradigm of decision-making in the
Kingdom and coping with Mohammad bin Salman's not-typically-Saudi
regional policies towards Iran and other threats.

Mohammad bin Salman's "Vision 2030" is totally identified with his
leadership. If it succeeds, he will harvest the praise; on the other
hand, many in the Saudi elite will latch on to any sign of failure of
his policies in order to block his ambitions. However, none of them will
actively attempt to disrupt Mohammad bin Salman's plans; such a power
struggle could precipitate the end of the rule of the al-Saud family and
the very existence of the Saudi state, and they are aware that either
they "hang together or they hang separately". The risks to the regime
from the economic reform process, however, do not necessarily come from
proactive efforts to disrupt it. Mohammad bin Salman's social-political
agenda to broaden the power base of the regime to include the young and
educated -- and to a great extent relatively secular or moderate -- will
certainly be seen by the Wahhabi clerics and the tribal social
conservatives as geared towards reducing their control over the populace
and hence their weight in the elite. Another serious risk is that the
economic plan entails reducing the Saudi welfare state. The economic and
social fallout of weaning the Saudis off entitlements will be exploited
by domestic opposition elements and by Iran.

Saudi
Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets with U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 7, 2015. (Image source: U.S. State
Department)

The changes in the Saudi Oil Ministry reflect Mohammad bin Salman's
strategic policy of using Saudi oil to minimize Iran's economic and
political profits from the lifting of sanctions, even at the expense of
Saudi profit from its oil. This policy has broad support in the Saudi
elite, with the possible exception of some of the government oil
bureaucracy and the oil-related business community. But the latter do
not have the power to derail the regime's priorities in this regard.
Therefore, we are likely to see a continuation of the Saudi policy of
high production, willingness to offer attractive deals in order to
undercut Iranian overtures to existing Saudi markets, and a high level
of sensitivity to any threats to the oil industry. The chances of
Iranian retaliation for the Saudi economic warfare are high. These could
take the shape of cyber-attacks on installations inside Saudi Arabia,
or terrorist attacks (including rocket attacks) against pipelines,
refineries and other installations, and even attacks - without taking
responsibility -- on Saudi oil shipping inside the Persian Gulf or --
more likely further away from the theater. Such attacks may normally be
seen as providing Iran plausible deniability from the point of view of
international law, but they will be attributed to Iran by the Saudi
regime, that will see itself as obliged to react. Therefore, in the
current state of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and assuming
that the chances of rapprochement are slim, the chances of actual
limited military conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia remain.

* * *

The Islamic State has come under increasing military pressure in both
Iraq and Syria in recent weeks, and it is likely to lose territory. Yet
this will not make Iraq more united or stable, nor will it bring the
civil war in Syria any closer to an end. Iran's influence in Iraq will
grow, while the Sunnis will see the US as Iran's enabler. The Islamic
State will try to respond to its losses by launching major terror
attacks in the West. The Islamic State lacks the manpower to defend all
the Iraqi and Syrian territory it has occupied since 2014. Consequently,
its strategy consists first and foremost of defending strategically or
symbolically important assets, primarily al-Raqqah, Fallujah and Mosul,
as well as key supply routes. In addition, it is compensating for its
defeats by carrying out lethal terror attacks in Syria and Iraq in order
to demonstrate that while these regimes can, with foreign backing,
regain territory, they cannot defend their citizens.

The military successes against the Islamic State will entail a number
of long-range problematic political implications: exacerbation of the
Sunni-Shiite conflict in Iraq and in the region in general,
strengthening Iranian influence on the back of American military power,
increased animosity towards the US, and widening the gap between the
Baghdad government and the Kurds. The Islamic State will eventually be
pushed out of Fallujah, thanks to the American support. Once the Islamic
State is pushed out of Fallujah and perhaps out of Mosul, Shiite
militias will move in to exact their revenge. Fallujah will again be a
fertile ground for Sunni radicalism and a new Sunni insurgency in the
area is almost inevitable; the Sunni populace will probably rebel again
under some successor of the Islamic State and Fallujah will have to be
"liberated" again. Furthermore, the American airstrikes in support of
the Shiite ground offensive will strengthen the image of the US as
enabler of the Iranian takeover of Iraq and as responsible for Shiite
atrocities. Atrocities committed in Fallujah by the Shiite militias
under American auspices will give pause to the plans for initiating an
offensive on Mosul.

The Iraqi political system which the Americans constructed is on the
verge of final collapse. The stalemate over the election of a new
cabinet and "popular" demonstrations staged by Muqtada al-Sadr are
indicative of the inherent failure of the Iraqi political system. While
al-Sadr had proven that he can paralyze the government and the
Parliament, he cannot become the solution. He has helped to demolish an
already dysfunctional political system, but his sources of political
influence draw on the very factors that made that system dysfunctional:
sectarianism, a politicized military, use of "popular" violence to
challenge democratic procedures, involvement of religious authorities in
the democratic process, involvement of external actors (particularly
Iran) and the implicit threat of armed militias. Since the current
crisis derives from the power struggle within the Shiite community, it
will hinge to a great degree on Iran. It may escalate to a Shiite civil
war, and such a scenario would probably draw Iran to intervene directly,
or to encourage a Shiite military commander to stage a coup and
establish military rule, then pledge his allegiance to Iranian Supreme
Leader Khamenei. We assess that the US, under the current
administration, would probably acquiesce to "Pax Iranica" in Iraq, but
the more influence any settlement would accord Iran, the more it would
be unacceptable to the Gulf States, and they would use their influence
with the Sunnis and the Kurds to block it, inter alia, by increasing
support of radical Sunni groups in the country.

The cause of Kurdish independence is gaining momentum; all the
Kurdish factions seem to be dedicated to holding a referendum on Kurdish
independence before the elections in the US in order to create a fait accompli
for the next administration. The issue of independence, however, is
linked to the demand of the new PUK-Gorran alliance for parliamentary
elections and for the inclusion of mixed Arab-Kurdish areas that the
Peshmerga seized from the Islamic State in those elections and in the
independence referendum. (Foremost of these areas are the oil-rich area
of Kirkuk, the provinces of Nineveh, Diyala, and Salah ad-Din and the
regional capital of Mosul that is still in the hands of the Islamic
State). If the Kurdish Region succeeds in annexing these areas, it will
also signify a watershed event in the process of the breakup of Iraq.

Turkey and Iran will both oppose these plans and the current US
administration will not lend its support to a move that, in essence,
proves the failure of its Iraq policy and signals the breakup of Iraq.
Specifically, the prize of Kirkuk for the Kurdish state would be
prodigious; the Baghdad government has halted the export of oil produced
by its oil company in Kirkuk to Turkey in retaliation for the KRG's
independent oil exports. If Kirkuk Province joins the Kurdish Region,
the KRG would presumably be able to take control of Kirkuk's oil and
resume its export to Turkey or -- if the PUK-Gorran alliance comes to
power in the KRG -- to opt for the Iranian offer of export through Iran
to the Persian Gulf.

Turkey views the Raqqa offensive in Syria with great concern. The
American connection with the Kurdish YPG, which is viewed in Ankara as
an extension of the PKK, is seen as yet another indication of the US
inching towards support of an independent Kurdistan -- the chronic
nightmare of Turkey. Furthermore, if the Islamic State is pushed out of
al-Raqqa and surrounding areas by the YPG, these areas will come under
the control of Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava). Even before such a scenario
emerges, the Islamic State's priority of defending its regional capital,
Raqqa will probably bring it to redeploy its forces now deployed in the
Jarablus-Azaz Corridor, the stretch of land along the Syrian-Turkish
border which separates the eastern Kurdish territory from the western
enclave around the town of Afrin, north of Aleppo. The withdrawal of
Islamic State forces from this corridor would tempt the YPG to launch an
offensive westward from Jarablus in order to link up with the Afrin
enclave. Such a prize would be a far greater achievement for the YPG
than the capture of the non-Kurdish Raqqa area, and it would probably
prefer it. If the YPG indeed takes such a step, it is likely to
precipitate Turkish intervention, turning Turkey -- a NATO member --
into an active participant in the Syrian civil war against a party that
is allied with both the US and Russia.

* * *

In Iran, Despite the hopes of the moderate camp, the hardliner
90-year-old Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati was elected (May 24) as head of the
Assembly of Experts, after having gained 55 of 88 votes. This nomination
does not bode well for President Rouhani's future, should he insist on
implementing deeper liberalizing reforms.

More than anything else, Ayatollah Jannati's election highlights the
Supreme leader's grip on power. Ayatollah Khamenei did his best to help
Jannati's election by delivering his directives to some members of the
Assembly. The electoral process within the Assembly showed what was not
evident during the parliamentary elections held in February, namely that
even a formal preeminence of moderates does not and cannot influence
the decision making of the Iranian regime, and that Khamenei pulls the
strings despite seemingly democratic procedures. The Assembly of Experts
is rather formal and ceremonial body, unlike the Majles, however its
role might become crucial at some circumstances, should the Assembly be
summoned to nominate the following leader in the event of Khamenei's
death.

Ahmad Jannati, is important by virtue of what he epitomizes as a
symbol rather than by his current political capacity, which won't
persist long, given his age. He has been serving as secretary of the
Guardian Council since 1992, and in this capacity was instrumental in
consolidating Khamenei's power and, in all elections, was responsible
for weeding out "undesirable" candidates to the Majles and Assembly of
Experts. After having won the chairmanship of the Assembly, Jannati
delivered a speech demanding total loyalty to Khamenei, which can be
considered as targeting the moderates. Jannati is not alone with this
mindset: his respective first and second deputies are hardliners:
Mohammad Kermani and Mahmoud Shahroudi. The latter served for many years
as the head of the judiciary, is close to Khamenei and is mentioned as a
potential successor to Khamenei. This casting of the Assembly of
Experts highlights that Khamenei is preparing to guarantee his
ideological legacy and the ideological continuity of the regime after
his death.

The election of Jannati was even more conspicuous in the light of the
corresponding withdrawal of the chief candidate of the moderates, who
they had hoped would serve as an ally within the regime -- former
President Hashemi Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani decided to withdraw from the
electoral competition under pressure by the hardliners, including
attacks on his children, his daughter, Faezah and his son, Mehdi.

On May 28, Ali Larijani was elected as the speaker of the Majles for
the third term. Larijani is considered a hardliner; for over 30 years,
he has been a confidant of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. His brother
Sadeq Larijani is chief of the judiciary, and his other brothers have
played important roles in diplomacy and government affairs. A veteran of
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Larijani is also the son
of Grand Ayatollah Hashem Amoli and son-in-law to prominent Islamic
ideologue Morteza Motahhari. The moderate conservative politician Ali
Motahhari is his brother-in-law. Given this multifaceted background, he
has been able to establish strong, longstanding ties with both the
military and the clergy, and with different factions in the Majles, with
the exception of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who became
Larijani's nemesis. During Ahmadinejad's second term, Larijani openly
confronted him.

By contrast, Larijani is considered close to President Hassan
Rouhani. During the nuclear negotiations, Larijani contained
anti-Rouhani moves in the legislature and got the Majles to ratify the
agreement. However, it must be clear that he did this not because he is
Rouhani's ally, but because he was ordered to carry out this mission by
the Supreme Leader. Hence, Larijani will remain supportive of Rouhani,
but only on the condition that the latter complies with the wishes of
the Supreme Leader. If Larijani decides to stand for office, he may
leverage his position in the Majles and his status with the Supreme
Leader to whittle away at Rouhani's popularity.

In the meantime, the Majles will be more supportive of Rouhani. Out
of the 80 Majles members who opposed the nuclear agreement, fewer than a
dozen remain. None of them is high profile, and their low numbers
prevent them from establishing a bloc of their own, as they did in the
previous parliament. Instead, they will have to operate within a
"Principlists" bloc that is dominated by more moderate "Principlist"
figures. This means that the remaining hardliners will be less likely to
stage the theatrics that were so successful in challenging the
government during the last Majles, particularly through their repeated
summoning of various ministers to answer questions; and the impeachment
of the minister of science, technology and higher education. Their
absence will lead to a calmer parliamentary environment, more focused on
addressing the serious economic issues Iran faces such as unemployment,
reform of the banking sector, and the steep economic slowdown. This
notwithstanding, one should bear in mind that the above scenario is
confined to the functioning of the Majles vis-à-vis Rouhani, whereas the
real chances of success of his program depend on other foci of power.

Dr. Shmuel Bar is a senior research
fellow at the Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy Studies at the
Technion in Haifa, Israel, and a veteran of Israel's intelligence
community.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8289/strategic-outlook-saudi-arabia-iran Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.